Sen. Ted Cruz said Sunday that doing everything possible to thwart the Iran deal should include states exploring imposing their own sanctions.

The Republican presidential candidate from Texas was asked at a raucous town hall-style forum here about the prospects of states taking action to impose sanctions on the money the Obama administration has agreed to release as part of the deal regarding the country’s nuclear development.

“I think that states should act and lead to do exactly that,” Cruz said.

You may, of course, proceed to laugh yourself to emergency surgery if you are so inclined, but the Texas junior isn’t done yet, as Niels Lesniewski makes clear for Roll Call. Mr. Cruz recalled an occasion when, as solicitor general, he rebuffed an attempt by President George W. Bush to force Texas to apply the authority of the International Criminal Court. Without drawing any connection to his proposition that states conduct geopolitics, Cruz reminded, “The court further concluded that no president, Republican of Democrat, has the constitutional authority to give up U.S. Sovereignty. So I think states ought to go down that road.”

When Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz became the first politician to officially announce his presidential campaign last week, he repeated a familiar mantra to his audience at Virginia’s Liberty University.

“Instead of a federal government that seeks to dictate school curriculum through Common Core, imagine repealing every word of Common Core,” the Texas politician said to roaring applause.

The only problem? The Common Core State Standards are not enshrined in any federal law, and therefore cannot be repealed.

We might pause for a moment to consider the Texas junior in the context of Republicans and government. After all, if the purpose of government in Republican hands is to repeal laws that don’t exist, there might be a reason government in Republican hands just doesn’t work.